The Montessori method works because it is based on observing the activities of each child within a well-defined learning environment. Within the Montessori environment, children engage in activities of their choice during the work cycle. A trained adult observes and assists as appropriate. It is the child’s self-directed and purposeful activity that leads to greater independence, concentration, and rapid personal growth.

Success in a Montessori program is determined by the understanding and implementation of the following principles:

Four Planes of Development

• Birth to Six (The “Absorbent Mind”—the Unconscious Learner)
• Six to 12 (The “Reasoning Mind”—the Conscious Learner)
• 12 to 18 (Adolescence—the Social Learner)
• 18-24 (Maturity—the Social Contributor)

Human Tendencies

The activities that have been developed in Montessori classrooms over the past one hundred years are based on observable human tendencies toward certain behavior. Humans have natural, observable patterns of behavior, or tendencies.

The unique human characteristics that are tendencies of children:

• Activity
• Becoming
• Belonging
• Exploration
• Orientation
• Order
• Communication
• Imagination
• Exactness
• Repetition
• Perfection

Pedagogical, or Teaching and Learning, Principles

Pedagogy means the activities of educating, teaching or instructing activities that impart knowledge and skill. Some of the Montessori pedagogical principles are:

• Teachers as the line between the child and the environment
• Freedom of choice and development of responsibility
• Auto-education or self-construction
• Concrete to abstract learning through the classroom materials
• The working of the hand and the mind
• Observation of the child at work
• Repetition through a variety of materials
• The Prepared Environment

The prepared environment in the Montessori classroom involves three basic elements: physical, order, and human. These basic elements provide both clear structure and expectations for the children—a structure that helps create a lifetime love of learning.

Work Cycle

The Montessori Method works because the child is given the luxury of uninterrupted time. The child, engaged with free choice activities, during a work cycle, develops independence and concentration that aids in personal growth—mental, physical, emotional, and social.

Three-Year Age Spans (3-6, 6-9, etc.)

In primary or Casa (9-12) classroom, as well as the elementary classroom, the age spans are normally referred to as “from three to six-years old.” However, since each child develops on his or her own schedule, a primary or elementary classroom may have younger or older children in the environment. The decision for a child to move from one classroom to another should be based on the observable developmental needs of the child, not chronological age.

Concentration and Independence

The pedagogical principles of the Montessori method are designed to help each child attain a strong level of concentration and to help him or her be able to “do it myself.”

Concentration can be developed in two basic ways:

• Doing a purposeful activity multiple times in succession, or
• Doing a variety of activities over longer periods of time

Free Choice

When we allow free choice, we give the child the freedom to select the works he or she finds meaningful.

Dr. Montessori encouraged Montessorians to have faith in the child’s ability to self-construct. When we observe children happily working in a prepared environment with clear structure and expectations, we should be able to have faith in the child’s abilities.

Freedom Within Limits

The ideas of freedom within limits and freedom linked to responsibility are concepts that are sometimes difficult to understand. The freedoms in a Montessori classroom are to be safeguarded by the adults. It is the freedom within limits of responsibility that create the essential dynamic of a Montessori classroom.

Understanding Creativity, Imagination, and Fantasy
Montessori principles work because of an understanding of the nature of fantasy in the child, the origins of creativity, and the works of the imagination.

From birth to six years of age, the child is a literal learner. One could say that the child is learning the facts of life. Facts are of enormous interest to the young child.

When the child enters the second plane of development, around age six to seven, fairy tales, fiction, and non-fiction, which offer moral development and excite the imagination, will appeal to the child.

The Works of the Hand and the Mind

Having a prepared environment full of meaningful hands-on activities that engage the child’s intellect is another reason Montessori education works. We might say that the child’s hands working with the Montessori materials help the child’s brain grow in effective ways. The nerve connection between the hands and the sensory cortex in the brain account for almost a fourth of all sensory inputs in the entire body.

As the child works with the prepared lessons in the Montessori classroom, he or she begins to create, with the hand, a mental construct of certain qualities and relationships in the world.